Jay Rockefeller: “I just listened, as I always do, very closely to my friend, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, and not only identify…”

“I just listened, as I always do, very closely to my friend, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, and not only identify myself with what he says but the compassion with which he says it, and the persistence. He never quits. There is no Senator in this body or in the recent history of this body who ever fought so hard for so many things so constantly, whatever the hour, the day or the night, than the senior Senator from Massachusetts. He has been talking a lot because not enough of us have come down to the floor to help him. You can hear the hoarseness in his voice. I have heard cracks in his voice, and they have been when he has spoken at the funerals of, most recently, his mother, and to mourn the death of his two brothers, Robert and John. I heard cracks in his voice then. He did his best to prevent that, and then, at the end, could not quite avoid it. And I think we all sort of wanted that to happen so we could share in his grief. But if you hear cracks in his voice now it is because he is fighting just for what they would fight for. But he is tired. His voice is tired, but his spirit is not. I respect him.”